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Published 4:00 am, Thursday, October 11, 2007

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Gene Robinson at his consecration in FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO directed by Daniel Karslake. A First Run Features release.

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Gene Robinson at his consecration in FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO directed by Daniel Karslake. A First Run Features release.

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Jack and Ina wedding kiss
1943: Holland is under total Nazi occupation. In Amsterdam, Jack, an unassuming accountant, first meets Ina at a birthday party ? a 20-year-old beauty from a wealthy diamond manufacturing family who instantly steals his heart. But Jack�s pursuit of love will be complicated; he is poor and married to Manja, a flirtatious and mercurial spouse. less

Jack and Ina wedding kiss
1943: Holland is under total Nazi occupation. In Amsterdam, Jack, an unassuming accountant, first meets Ina at a birthday party ? a 20-year-old beauty from a wealthy diamond ... more

Photo: -

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'For the Bible Tells Me So'

Documentary. Directed by Dan Karslake. (Not rated. 97 minutes. At the Lumiere in San Francisco and the Shattuck in Berkeley.)

Ah yes, here's just what we need now, another film about the Christian right's virulent political crusades against gays and lesbians. You can almost imagine the formula: Footage of protesters and those "God Hates Fags" signs, some reference early on to Matthew Shepard, and, oh look, here comes Donald Wildmon and there's fire coming out of his mouth.

Except: "For the Bible Tells Me So" doesn't follow the formula. That's just one of the reasons it works well as a film and a lesson about, as one open-minded preacher puts it, what the Bible "reads" about what it supposedly "says" about homosexuality.

As everyone knows who's heard the hate-mongering before, the Bible says homosexuality is "an abomination." But, as many theologians explain in Dan Karslake's eye-opening film, when the relevant Scripture was written, "abomination" meant something that was not according to custom or tradition. It did not mean the same thing that it means today. Yet it is the phrase you'll hear repeated over and over by those who simply cannot rest unless every gay and lesbian person in the world represses his or her nature and spends the rest of his or her life in self-hatred and misery.

But Karslake's film goes beyond talking only to theologians and psychologists. It also talks to parents of gay and lesbian kids, and to the kids themselves. Among the latter group is Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, who fought his own nature early in life, got married and fathered children before finally admitting he had been living a lie. His parents, old-fashioned Southerners, didn't take the revelation well at first, like many of the parents interviewed here. But they stuck by their son and were there the day he was consecrated a bishop in the Episcopal Church.

Young activist Jake Reitan was lucky. His parents were shocked when he came out to them in high school and were worried about his decision against waiting until he got to college to come out to the rest of the world, but they never rejected him. Instead, they spent time learning about what it meant - and didn't mean - to be gay. Jake and his parents were arrested trying to deliver a letter to the Rev. Jim Dobson's Focus on the Family organization, arguing that by supporting each other and accepting the truth about Jake, the Reitans were focusing on family in ways that mattered.

Even more courageous, the parents of Chrissy Gephardt not only accepted their daughter's sexual orientation but also sent her out on the campaign trail when her dad, former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, ran for president a few years ago. The world did not crumble and, in fact, Chrissy Gephardt was seen as a great asset to her father's campaign, not because she's a lesbian but because she's a great speaker and a great politician.

That's the good-news side of the story, but the other side still predominates in many American families. Brenda Poteat hasn't come around to fully accepting her daughter Tonia as a lesbian, but she's made strides. Her big obstacle, she realized, was focusing on how Tonia had sex. But when she realized everything about her daughter was the same as it was before Brenda learned about her sexual orientation, she was able to move much closer to her.

Obviously, a film like "For the Bible" won't convert anyone who believes that the Bible pronounces homosexuality a hateful sin. That's too bad because the so-called literal interpretation of Scripture is, in fact, quite the opposite. Inevitably, this film will preach to a choir of those who already believe God loves them regardless of sexual orientation. But it offers intelligent reassurance from people who really know what the Bible says, as opposed to those who think they do.

'Great World of Sound'

Anyone who has enjoyed laughing at the bad singers auditioning on "American Idol," consider the independent film "Great World of Sound" your penance.

The artists seeking stardom in the dingy hotel rooms in this movie are just as real as the ones on the hit Fox show, but the results are much more disturbing. Almost everyone is getting conned, including the fake "record producers" who will sign anybody with big dreams and a cash advance.

"Great World of Sound" is difficult to watch, and the film is sabotaged by an impossibly naive lead character and the repetitive auditions that become gratuitously depressing. Craig Zobel's film becomes fascinating only when you find out that these scenes were shot with hidden cameras, and the performances by the amateur artists are quite authentic.

The film begins with Martin (Pat Healy) taking a job with Great World of Sound, a record company that places classified ads in small-town newspapers and conducts auditions in seedy hotel rooms. Some of the acts are horrible, and some are quite good. All the auditioners are offered contracts, as long as they can come up with at least $1,000 for producing fees.

Martin and his fast-talking partner, Clarence (veteran television actor Kene Holliday), quickly become the company's top sales team, with a knack for separating the hopeful masses from their money. The catch: Martin, at least, thinks Great World of Sound is a legitimate company. And it quickly becomes clear that Martin and Clarence are being conned, too.

That's the biggest problem with "Great World of Sound." Martin is portrayed by Healy as a reasonably intelligent person, and yet he can't seem to figure out what the audience understands in the first five minutes. As a result, his crisis of conscience never rings true. Holliday's Clarence is a much better-formed, complicated and more entertaining character, and he steals the end of the movie with two heartfelt scenes.

Zobel's father apparently did this kind of work, and the little details are present in the film. When you see how easy it is to make a framed gold record, you might put a few on your own living room wall.

'Manufacturing Dissent'

I side with Richard Gere, who says in the new documentary about Michael Moore, "I agree with his politics, but not always his methods."

It appears Canadian filmmakers Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk feel the same way. "Manufacturing Dissent" is a solid, well-done and seemingly balanced look at Moore's work, his celebrity, his methods and the ethical problems in his reporting. This is a film you'd enjoy if you are a Michael Moore fan, and more than that, it examines what makes a documentary a documentary and how much filmmakers have an obligation to tell the whole truth.

This isn't a hit piece, like the right-wing 2004 film "Michael Moore Hates America." It's a film by veteran liberal filmmakers who specialize in examining media. They take care to trumpet all the good that he has done, yes, but they don't hold back, either - Moore is subject to some Canadian bakin'. There are blatant fictions in his films he cannot possibly defend, and he employs as much spin control and as many militant PR people as his Republican targets. To some, he's just a jerk.

Caine and Melnyk begin by tracing Moore's beginnings, his post-college years - including his disastrous stint as editor of Mother Jones magazine in San Francisco in the mid-1980s - and his breakthrough film, "Roger & Me" (1989). One of the most revolutionary documentaries ever, it portrayed the neglect of Flint, Mich., by General Motors, encapsulated by Moore's quest, ultimately a failed one, to interview GM head Roger Smith.

Trouble is, Moore did interview Smith before the film was ever made. But that wouldn't make for a good film, would it?

The bulk of "Manufacturing Dissent" is the filmmakers following Moore between May 2004, when "Fahrenheit 9/11" won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, through the presidential election that November. There is, predictably, their failed attempt at getting an interview, but also illuminating analysis (both good and bad) of Moore and his work by friends, former friends, former co-workers, and experts such as Ralph Nader, film critic Jack Mathews, documentarian Errol Morris, indie film guru John Pierson and many others.

I found this film valuable. I like Moore's films. I, too, am troubled by the liberties he takes. He is such a talented filmmaker that he could make his point, while still being entertaining, without lying.

Nonetheless, here is a person who has made the three highest-grossing documentaries in history, making the genre "cool" - and not just for the PBS crowd - and whose films are mostly factually correct. His films are slanted, but aren't all documentaries, including this one?

-- Advisory: This film has brief nudity (at a protest; not of Mr. Moore), and strong language.

- G. Allen Johnson

'Steal a Pencil for Me'

Documentary. Starring Ina Soep and Jaap Polak. Directed by Michèle Ohayon. (Not rated. 94 minutes. In English and Dutch with English subtitles. At the Roxie New College Film Center.)

"Steal a Pencil for Me" is a terrific documentary about forbidden love in the most heinous of places. Jaap Polak and Ina Soep's courtship serves as not only a story about these two people's lives but also as a testament to survival and the horrors of the Holocaust.

What makes this documentary about the Holocaust stand out is that it's two parallel stories - the love story and a description of Dutch Jews before and during World War II.

The movie opens with the couple celebrating 60 years of marriage in New York. Soep is still a beauty in her 80s, and Polak is a lively 90-year-old.

Polak came from a lower-middle-class Jewish family while Soep grew up as a child of wealth - her father was a diamond merchant. If not for the laws that persecuted the Jews, the two would probably never have met. Their first meeting was at a party, and Polak was smitten. But he was married - although he planned to get a divorce after the war.

It wasn't until the two went to "model" transit camp Westerbrook that they fell in love for real. After Polak's wife found out, she told Soep to stay away from her husband, but the two began a correspondence. Eventually all three ended up at the death camp Bergen-Belsen (where Anne Frank died), and somehow Polak and Soep continued their letter writing. Soep landed a job as a stenographer and had access to pencils. When Polak was down to his last stubs, he asked her to steal pencils.

Most of Polak's letters and some of Soep's survived, and what was written in them was not only love notes, but vivid descriptions of the abominations and degradations they had to endure every day. The couple, along with friends and family survivors, elaborate on what it was like to be a Dutch Jew during those years.

So many documentaries about the Holocaust have been shown before. One would think we've seen enough. "Steal a Pencil for Me" proves we can never learn too much.

'Oswald's Ghost'

Documentary. Written and directed by Robert Stone. (Not rated. 90 minutes. At the Roxie.)

The assassination of John F. Kennedy shattered our belief systems and our trust in authority. "Oswald's Ghost" uses the JFK assassination to explain how the nation and the world would never be the same again. While trying to establish whether a conspiracy took place, the film attempts to solve the enigma that was Lee Harvey Oswald.

Writer and director Robert Stone gives us a look at the times, but unresolved issues and an unfocused point of view at times detract from a valuable history lesson.

Before the assassination, Americans seemed to believe that authority knew what it was doing and would protect our country. Television was relatively new, and computers were hardly in our vocabulary. After the death, disillusionment was a byword. The movie even presents some evidence that Kennedy was going to pull our troops out of Vietnam. We know how that war ended up changing our country and values.

The other aspect of the movie is whether Oswald acted alone. Those interviewed at the time say the most unlikely candidate to commit the crime in right-wing JFK-hating Dallas was a left-winger like Oswald.

The film succeeds in tracing the conditions before and after the assassination and lays out the case for conspiracy, but then takes an odd turn that contradicts the point the movie was trying to make in the first place: Don't always believe those in power.

Right after Lyndon Johnson took office, he established the Warren Commission, headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren. The movie says that because the group wanted to finish its findings before the 1964 election, it rushed to publish and introduced the laughable single-bullet theory. However, the established media accepted the commission's report without question.

In the film, Mark Lane and Edward Jay Epstein discuss their famous books debunking the facts of the commission, and Stone makes good usage of footage from the time, including the famous Abraham Zapruder film. But by the end of the movie, some of the conspiracy supporters take a 180-degree turn and accept that since no evidence has shown up confirming conspiracy, it couldn't have taken place.

The final nail in the conspiracy theory comes from an unexpected source. Whereas the movie takes a bit of a circuitous route to explain who Oswald really was and what his motives were, there is little to explain his reasons for killing JFK. But near the end of the film, we hear from Oswald's widow, Marina, who - whether intentionally or not - reveals something in his nature that could have led to his action.

This is a good refresher course for those who aren't familiar with the JFK assassination. But despite the film's attempts to close the case, there will always be questions about what happened on that November day in Dallas.

-- Advisory: Gory scenes of the assassination.

- Leba Hertz

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